Assessing Readiness for Staff Training Systems in Idaho’s Local Health Departments: An Embedded Case Study

<p dir="ltr">The public health workforce is undergoing a critical transformation, driven by increasing demands for workforce development, new infrastructure investments, and self-identified training needs among local health department (LHD) staff. This research explored the readiness of Idaho’s LHDs to implement or enhance workforce development systems. Using an embedded multiple case study design, the researcher investigates how workforce development is characterized, assesses readiness to support enhanced systems supporting staff training, and generates recommendations to enhance systems supporting staff training within and among LHDs in Idaho.</p><p dir="ltr">Grounded in the R=MC² readiness framework, the study employed a phased qualitative approach that included listening sessions, document analysis, interviews, and a facilitated discussion with LHD leaders. Findings reveal that workforce development in Idaho LHDs is primarily understood as staff training, which is largely informal and lacks a shared vision across agencies. While motivation to improve training systems is high, capacity—both general and innovation-specific—is limited due to constraints in staffing, expertise, and funding. Despite these challenges, LHD leaders demonstrate openness to innovation and cross-agency collaboration.</p><p dir="ltr">Recommendations emerging from the study focus on bolstering the foundational elements of workforce development and staff training systems. Recommendations for enhancing efforts among LHDs build upon agency-level recommendations and include coordination among LHDs on a shared vision for staff training, coordinate efforts to assess staff competencies, develop template materials to be shared among agencies, and ensure deliberate collaboration opportunities to enhance staff training efforts.</p>

Author dc:creator

• Charlene Cariou (16360665)

• workforce development and training
• Local Health Departments
• public health staff
• readiness
• Staff Training and Development

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

DOI dc:identifier

https://doi.org/10.25417/uic.31165057.v1

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:figshare.com:article/31165057